Digital Camcorder vs. Digital Camera

I'm not sure if this belongs in Home Theater. I could see how it does though. If it's OT you can move it Taxi.

Anyway -- here's the situation. A group of friends and I are putting together a calendar. A very professional calendar featuring young Indian professionals inthe Chi-Town area. All proceeds go to charity. Our intial idea was to do photo shoots in a studio. What I suggested was that we could use a digital camcorder/camera to take pictures of the landmarks (hancock etc) and then take pictures of the models and merge them together.

Some questions ...

1. Is the above possible?
2. If you had a choice would you buy a digital camera or camcorder? Portability and ease of transfer into my laptop are key issues.
3. I've never owned a camcorder and really prefer stills to motion video for my collection. How easy is it to take still pics with a camcorder?
4. Suggestions on brands? Prices etc? I know next to nothing about these things right now.

Price wise -- I'm looking to spend around a grand if it a camcorder, 5 bills if it's a still camera.

Actually --- I really would like a camcorder so if you know of any small sized non bulky ones (JVC had one, right?) let me know since it might affect my decision.

Thanks in advance

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Krishna Sriram
DVDFile.Com General Manager
manager@dvdfile.com

[Chromy]

Well, for the above project I would recommend using a regular camera and scanning them at a very high resolution.

You won't have much luck with a digital camera if the final printed image size is going to be big at all. Digital cameras don't have the resolution.

Chromy

Really?? It's not going to be poster sized but rather like one of those normal sized wall calendars you see.

Problem with a normal camera is that we plan on having 12 sets of pictures (duh!)
3 or 4 different looks. Some solo pages,some with groups etc etc etc. If I use a normal camera (and I do have access to a scanner), I'd have no way of telling what each photo shoot looked like, right?

With adigital camera - my plan was to hook i up to my laptop to immediately tell if a particular shot was working, if the model was photogenic and stuff like that.

Now (and this goes out to any one with photography experience), should I try ans shoot the models at their locales or maybe set up a white screen background studio, take the pics of the people and then maybe merge it into a background.

Sounds complicated actually.

(I think the K-Dawg is involved in way too many different things at this point. It's for a good cause though and we're hoping to raise close to 50 grand. Yup -- we plan on selling 5000 calendars and yours truly is lead salesman,PR,business matters. As I said ... too many projects. )

Chromy,

I'm going to have to disagree with ya there. Some Digital Camera's DO offer a high enough degree of resolution to give you a nice 8x10. Take the new Olympus C2000. It has a capture res of 1600x1200. I personally have a Kodak DC260. It captures at 1536x1024.

If you guys are interested, I will post an image so you can see what it looks like.

You can get scanners that will scan at a higher resolution, but the costs get significantly more expensive (make sure you are looking for optical not enhanced resolution).

If this is going to be one time thing, I would actually recommend using a good old 35mm camera, and then have the developers put it on a Kodak Photo CD. The photo CD typically has the images stored at very high quality.

MERLIN

Merlin -- A powerful high res scanner isn't an issue. (Work )

And I'm not too happy with the idea of using a 35mm, getting photos back and then deciding that a partcular models nipples are showing or the ligt falls wrong or something to the effect.

And the more I think about it, the more I want a digital camcorder.

So I think I'm back to square 1.

-Krish

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DDS-017
DVDFile.Com General Manager
manager@dvdfile.com

[Dominik Pfleghaar]

Hook,

Now (and this goes out to any one with photography experience), should I try ans shoot the models at their locales or maybe set up a white screen background studio, take the pics of the people and then maybe merge it into a background.

If you decide to go with the separate photographing of the models and the background, here's a bit of advice:

1. Be sure to photograph the models with a telephoto lens. Avoid wide-angle lenses for portraits since they distort the models (something you sure don't want to happen, right? )

2. Make sure the pictures of the background are soft (out of focus). It will look very unnatural if the model and the background was in focus (since this is an impossibility).

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Unca Dom, DDS-088
dvdfile.com moderator
dominikpfleghaar@netscape.net

[Rick Lowery]

The new Nikon 950 has a resolution and print that is so clear, I think you could make a psoter sized picture at full resolution and not see pixelization.

Check it out at http://www.steves-digicams.com/



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Rick Lowery
DVDFile Forum Administrator
ForumAdmin@DVDFile.com

Probably not what you wanna hear but....

1. Use a digital camera (low res/high res) on sight to set up your subject, test out various scenarios, looks, lighting, etc.

2. When you find approriate poses and scenarios you like, shoot with a 35mm camera.

The digital camera can save time from developing film, but once going to paper, 35mm will deliver the contrast, saturation, and resolution that current digital cameras have yet to offer.

If going no bigger than 8x10 photos for the calendar, a hi-res 2 Megapixel camera should do the trick if you have to/want to go digital. However, once you exceed 8x10, no digital camera will offer the quality of a 35mm camera.

Interestingly enough, I'm surprised no one (not even Kodak w/ $25k digital cameras) offers a 3 CCD camera, for red/green/blue. My Sony TRV900 takes awesome 640x480 digi photos that blow every other digi cameras 640x480 photos away. Makes me wonder what a 2 megapixel (or higher) camera w/ 3CCDs could do....

-Brian